Sir Edmund laughed. He evidently considered Joan a spoiled darling of Society with a new whim. "My dear young lady!" he exclaimed, "in what capacity, pray? We do not devote s.p.a.ce to fashions, even in a Sat.u.r.day edition. Would you come to us as a reporter, like your friend Mr.

Mainbridge?"

"As a special reporter," amended Joan. "I would undertake any mission of importance----"

"There are none going begging on _The Planet_. But" (this soothingly by way of sugaring a dismissal) "you have only to get hold of something good and bring it to me. For instance, some nice, spicy little item as to the truth of the rumoured alliance between Russia and j.a.pan. We would pay you quite well for that, you know, provided you gave it to us in time to publish ahead of any other paper."

"How much would you pay me?" asked Joan, nettled at this chaffing tone of the famous man.

"Enough to buy a new frock and perhaps a few hairpins; say a hundred pounds."

"That isn't enough," said Joan; "I should want a thousand."

Sir Edmund turned a sudden, keen gaze upon the girl; then his face relaxed. "We might rise to that. At all events, I'm safe in promising it."

"It _is_ a promise, then?"

"Oh, certainly."

"Thank you. Let me see if I understand clearly. I'm not quite the baby you think, Sir Edmund. I read the papers--yours especially--and take, I trust, an intelligent interest in the political situation. Now, the latest rumour is that Russia is secretly planning an understanding with j.a.pan and China. What you would like to know is whether there is truth in the rumour, and what, in that event, England would do."

"Exactly. That is what all the papers are dying to find out."

"If you could get the official news before any of them, you would give the person who obtained it for you a thousand pounds. If, in addition, they, or one of them--let us say _The Daily Beacon_--got the _wrong_ news on the same day, you would no doubt add five hundred to the original thousand; for revenge is sweet, even to an editor, I suppose, and _The Beacon_ has, I have heard, contrived to be first in the field on one or two important occasions within the last few years."

This allusion was a pin-p.r.i.c.k in a sensitive place, for Joan was aware that _The Daily Beacon_ and _The Planet_ were deadly rivals as well as political opponents. Mainbridge had told her the tale of _The Planet's_ humiliation by the enemy, and she had not forgotten. _The Beacon_ had been able, at the very time when _The Planet_ was arguing against their probability, to a.s.sert that certain political events would take place, and in time these statements had been justified, to the discomfiture of _The Planet_.

Sir Edmund frowned slightly. "_The Daily Beacon_ possesses exceptional advantages," he sneered. "It is difficult for less favoured journals to compete with it for political information."

"I believe I can guess what you refer to," answered Joan. "I hear things, you know, from my cousin, Miss Milton." (This to shield Mainbridge.) "Lord Henry Borrowdaile, an Under Secretary of State, is a distant relative of Mr. Portheous, the proprietor of _The Daily Beacon_, and it is said that there has been a curious leakage of diplomatic secrets, once or twice, by which _The Beacon_ profited."

"You are a well-informed young lady."

"I hope to earn your cheque as well as your compliment," said Joan.

"Perhaps you will write it before many days have pa.s.sed."

"It must be before many days, if at all."

"I understand that time presses, if you are to be first in the field, for the great secret can't be kept from the public for more than a week or ten days at most. But look here, Sir Edmund, would you go that extra five hundred if, on the day that your paper published the truth about the situation, _The Beacon_ made a fool of itself by printing exactly the opposite?"

"Yes," said the editor, "I would."

"Well, we shall see what we shall see," returned Joan. She then took leave of Sir Edmund, who was certainly not in a mood to blame Mainbridge for an introduction under false pretences, even if he were far from sure that charming Miss Carthew could accomplish miracles.

As for Joan, her head was in a whirl. She wanted to do this thing more than she had ever wanted anything in her life, though it had not entered her head a few moments ago. She would not despise fifteen hundred pounds; but it was not of the money she was dreaming as she told her cabman to drive to Battersea Park, and keep on driving till ordered to stop. The strange girl could always collect and concentrate her thoughts while driving, and this was her object now.

Joan had never met Lord Henry Borrowdaile, but during her year at Northmuir House she had known people who were friends or enemies of the young man and his wife. She had her own reason for listening with interest to intimate talk about the character and private affairs of persons who were important figures in the world, for at any time she might wish to use knowledge thus gained. She did not believe, from what she had heard, that Lord Henry Borrowdaile, son of the Marquis of Wast.w.a.ter, was a man to betray State secrets for money. He was "bookish"

and literary, and though he was not rich, neither did he covet riches.

But he did adore his beautiful young wife, and was said by those who knew him to be as wax in her hands. She was popular, as well as pretty; was vain of being the leader of a very gay set, and dressed as if her reputation depended upon being the best-gowned woman in London. Because Lady Henry posed as an _ingenue_, who scarcely knew politics from polo, Joan suspected her. "It is she who worms out secrets from her husband and sells them to Portheous," Joan said to herself. "Oh! to be a fly on the wall in the Borrowdailes' house for the next week!"

This wish was so vivid, that like a lightning flash it seemed to illumine the dim corners of the girl's brain. She suddenly recalled another story of the inestimable Mainbridge's, told in connection with the rivalry of _The Daily Beacon_ and _The Planet_.

"An eminent statesman's servant told the secret of his master's intended resignation," she said to herself. "Why shouldn't a servant at the Borrowdailes'----"

She did not finish out the thought at the moment; the vista it opened was too wide to be taken in at a glance. But after driving for an hour round and round Battersea Park, the patient cabman suddenly received an order to go quickly to Clarkson's, the wigmaker. At the shop, the hansom was discharged, and it was a very different-looking fare which another cab picked up at the same door somewhat later.

CHAPTER X--The Coup of "The Planet"

About half-past five, a plump old country-woman, with a brown tissue veil over her ruddy, wrinkled face, waddled into a green-grocer's not far from South Audley Street. She bade the young man in the shop a wheezy "Good day," and asked if she might be bold enough to inquire whether Lady Henry Borrowdaile's housekeeper were a customer. Yes, the youth admitted with pride, for anything in their line which was not sent up from the Marquis of Wast.w.a.ter's, in the country, they had the honour of serving her Ladyship.

"Ah! I thought how it would be, your place being so near, and the nicest round about," said the old country-woman. "The truth is, I have to go to the house on a disagreeable errand. I volunteered to do it for a friend, and I've forgotten the number. I've to break some bad news to one of the housemaids."

"Not Miss Jessie Adams, I hope!" protested the young man, blushing up to the roots of his light hair.

"Yes, it is poor Jessie," said the old woman. "You know her?"

"We've been walking out together the last six months. I suppose her father's took bad again, or--or worse?"

"He's living--or was when I left; but----" and the old-fashioned bonnet with the veil shook ominously. "Well, I must go and do my duty. I hope she'll be able to get home for a week or so."

A few minutes later, Joan, delighted with her disguise and the detective skill she was developing, rang the servants' bell at the Borrowdailes'.

She had learned what she had hoped to learn, the name of one of the maids, and she had also learned something more--the fact that Jessie Adams had a father whose state of health would afford an excuse for absence; and the existence of a lover, who would probably urge immediate marriage if there were enough money on either side.

The old countrywoman with the brown veil was voluble to the footman who opened the door. She explained that she had news from home for Jessie Adams, and was shown into a servant's sitting-room, where presently appeared a fresh-looking girl with languishing eyes, and a full, weak mouth.

"Oh, I thought perhaps it would be Aunt Emmy!" exclaimed the young person in cap and ap.r.o.n.

"No, I'm not Aunt Emmy, but you may take it I'm a friend," replied the old woman. "Don't be frightened. Your father ain't so very bad, but your folks would be glad to have you at home if you could manage it.

And, look here, my gell, here's good news for you. You may make a tidy bit of money by going, if you can get off at once--this very night. How much must you and that nice young man of yours put by before you can marry?"

"We can't marry till he sets up in business for himself, and it will take a hundred pounds at least," said the girl. "We've each got about ten pounds saved towards it. But what's ten pounds?"

"Added on to ninety it makes a hundred, and you can earn that by lending your place here for one fortnight to a niece of mine, who wants to be a journalist and write what the doings inside a smart house are like.

She'd name no names, so you'd never be given away. All you'd have to do would be to tell the housekeeper your father was took bad, and would she let you go if you'd bring your cousin Maria in your stead--a clever, experienced girl, with the best references from Lord Northmuir's house?"

"My goodness me, you take my breath away!" gasped Jessie Adams. "How do I know but your niece is a thief who'd steal her Ladyship's jewels?"

"You don't know, except that I say she isn't. But, anyhow, what does it matter to you? You don't need to come back or ever be in service again.

Here's the ninety pounds in gold, my dear. You can bite every piece, if you wish; and you've but to do what I say to get them before you walk out of this house. You settle matters with the housekeeper, and I'll have my niece call on her within the hour."

The girl with the languishing eyes and the weak mouth had her price, like many of her betters, and it happened to be exactly ninety pounds.

Joan had brought a hundred, and considered that she had made a bargain.

Jessie consented to speak to the housekeeper, and the countrywoman departed. By this time it was dusk. She took a four-wheeler and drove to the gates of the Park. In a dark and lonely spot the outer disguise was whisked off, and the paint wiped from her face. Underneath her shawl she wore a neat black dress, suitable for a housemaid in search of a situation. This, too, Joan had thoughtfully obtained at Clarkson's, whence her pale blue cloth had been despatched by messenger to Woburn Place. The bonnet was quickly shaped into a hat; the stuffing which had plumped out the thin, girlish form was wrapped in the shawl which had concealed it, and hidden under a bush. Joan's own hair was combed primly back from her forehead, and strained so tightly at the sides as to change the expression of her face completely. "Cousin Maria" was as different from Miss Joan Carthew as a mouse is from a bird of Paradise.

Cream could not be more velvety soft than Joan's voice, the eye of a dove more mild than hers, as she conversed with Lady Henry Borrowdaile's housekeeper. And she was armed with a magnificent reference. There had been a Maria Jordan at Lord Northmuir's, as housemaid, in Joan's day there, but the real Maria had gone to America, and it was safe and simple to write in praise of this young person's character and accomplishments, signing the doc.u.ment Mercy Milton. At worst, even if Lady Henry's housekeeper sent the reference to Lord Northmuir's housekeeper, the imposition could not be proved. Maria might have had time to come back from America, and Miss Milton, now departed, might have consented to please the housemaid by giving her a written recommendation.